


Of The Storm

by sakon



Category: Ayatsuri Sakon | Puppet Master Sakon
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:15:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26276242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakon/pseuds/sakon
Summary: Death comes to collect a woman. (A drabble about grim reapers.)
Kudos: 1





	Of The Storm

At the sight of a black robe and the flash of the black against her eyes, she knows. A man emerges from the shadows, basking in the white light of her room, with a puppet on his hand. It sits, old and weary with the arts of old, so hollow that she can't believe it's a puppet. For, aren't they supposed to be animated?

The figure waits until she maintains her splintering dignity, scrambling off the bed in a flurry of screams and shouts --- g _et out of my house! --_ to speak. Maintaining herself, because what if her deathbed was a mere dream --

Reality is real; it is not. 

"I have come to get you," He says, low and deep.

There's a rusted puppet, true wood, on his left hand; it's silent, unspeaking. The red curls stretch beyond the buckled shoes and torn slacks, just as the man's -- death she believes --- does. Beyond the feet and into the dark, stretched into the black and invisible. 

The sight of him makes her bones clench and ice with awareness. She clutches her nightgown to her chest. She knows. 

"You're.." The woman doesn't breathe. When she catches herself not, then breathes, the man walks closer and speaks. 

"If you believe so, then," He replies, voice tinkering through the room, bending down to meet the woman's huddle, "I am." 

The man -- or maybe not, he is far too queer and pale and strange -- pulls the large puppet into the box on his back, now pulled to his chest momentarily. In a swift motion, the box dissipates into the dust, the surrounding room blew to red ashes and grey hurricanes of calm. The jewels, golden-crusted with sunlight in the bends, blow into the ripping space. Her bed, her pictures, her life, and livelihood ---

She scrambles back. The white of her eyes show.

"I don't want to go." She stares, frightened. She throws her hands, the boards -- anything --- and falls in the empty space in front of him. The figure doesn't flinch, merely holding out his hands for her to take. 

Sweat pours. She cries for minutes, then stares at the hand once more. 

White. Soft. Pure. Nothing she expects from death. At a harsher look, she sees the fat in his flesh, the soft of his cheeks. Something tells of age, of weary, but upon that disguise is innocence. 

She does not expect a mere child to take her away from her children. It must be penance for his owns sins. 

The storm rages on, almost infinitely, around them. A thunderclap and cloud soar by, the structure of the home she loves glowing under the blue midnight and white, smokey clouds. Red hair touches to the floor, drifting. The man stands there. It will not end; nothing will take him down.

He gives her a knowing look. Of course, she doesn't want to go. It is time for her to go. The howl of the wind sounds like her children, her husband --- all telling her to stay -- and the beyond is calling her. Her mother. Her father. They are on the other side. 

There's an unsaid, "I know _."_

It's a moment, a minute. Then an hour. It takes longer of suffering through the hail and rain and wind, but her hands reach the ones just beyond --- they feel so warm, look so cold, so spindly --- and catches his voice, maybe for the last time, for a second time.

"I'm sorry," He murmurs as if he knows, "You never had that choice."

Her murmurings of _where am I going_ and _what's beyond_ drown under the rain pelting them. The storm falls as she closes her eyes. The world fades. A hand squeezes hers, perhaps, for a final time. 

The world falls blank into the white light. 


End file.
